How To Unlock Creative Potential: The Secret to Diversity and Inclusion in Creativity

As part of National Inclusion Week, Creative
Equals has launched the new Creative & Media Equality Standard in
the UK and Australia. This is a real game-changer for the industry and
has so far highlighted why some groups progress, whilst others don't.

Says
Ali Hanan (left), CEO and founder of Creative Equals: "By unpacking
this, creativity can begin to see who we're inviting to the table - and
how diverse talents can achieve their full potential within our
businesses."

While the marketing and communications industry
have focused on putting standards in place for creative work with the
'Unstereotype Alliance' (launched at Cannes Lions 2017) and with the new
Advertising Standards Association on gender, this is the first standard
to show just how to 'unstereotype' teams - and the onlystandard that
goes beyond gender to include every aspect of diversity.

To gain these insights, the Standard has two views across workplace
culture, people and equality. One looks at a company's HR policies,
practices and behaviours, whilst the other asks staff for their
experiences (across gender, BAME, age, LGBTQ, ability, neurodiversity
and wellness diversity) and compares and contrasts the data points.

The
Standard deep-dives into everything from how briefs are written, to who
gets to work on them - and also looks at the output. By understanding
the end-to-end process, the data shows how bias influences systems, and
consequently, who may be more likely to succeed within the system.

Says
Hanan: "By understanding what goes on for different groups, we can
easily identify simple actionable steps to create more equality on the
creative shop floor. We hear that most companies understand why they'd
like to change, but now how - the standard gives them an understanding
of where they're at and the actions they can take"

Here are seven emerging trends so far:• Fathers in leadership roles are the most likely group to suffer from stress and burn out •
Most companies don't have a system for vetting briefs and work through
a 'diversity lens', leaving creative work at the potential risk of
'missing the mark' • 75% of job ads skew as being 'extremely
masculine' as the majority of companies have yet to put a system in
place for writing inclusive job ads• Maternal retention rates after two years run at just a quarter of those going off on maternity leave•
Men and women are put on gender stereotypical brands, with men working
across most brands, but women mainly on the beauty, food, retail and
travel brands so 'stereotypes' are played out on the creative shop floor
(before the work even gets made)• Most briefs are not looked
over to be 'gender neutral', so while the Advertising Standards
Associations legislation - coming out later this year - will have an
impact on the work, creative companies need to understand how their
process can lead to stereotypical briefs• BAME creatives are the
group most likely to strongly disagree their company is committed to
diversity or have visible role models within an organisation. While
their sample pool is limited, Creative Equals believes only 8% of
creatives come from a BAME background.

Says Hanan: "Diversity
and inclusion starts with the data. This understanding is gold dust and
shows companies immediate quick wins and longer team actions. The fact
is that implementing change won't happen overnight - change is
incremental: sometimes tiny details can make a huge difference. For
example, changing seating plans so feedback and informal mentoring and
sponsorship happens on the shop floor is low-cost, but high impact.
Ultimately, the Standard provides a company with a detailed set of
tangible measures, from the top to the bottom, year-on-year. With this
knowledge, we can start to creative diverse and inclusive cultures from
the inside out and we can remove blocks for certain groups, foster
diverse and inclusive workplaces and truly unlock the potential of
creativity."

Says Richard Robinson, managing partner of
Oystercatchers: "The Creative and Media Equality Standard is a diversity
and inclusion rating, review and road map for companies. 'Finally,
there is a credible and hard-working solution for companies to harness
the power of diverse talent and their benefits to businesses."

Says
Bec Brideson (left), Creative Equals' Australian partner: "Launching the
Standard isn't just the right thing to do morally, it's the only smart
thing to do when you look at it economically. Getting culture right
internally equals creating the right culture that we as creative and
media industry leaders influence, externally."

Don't tell my mother I'm in advertising, she thinks I play piano in a whorehouse.

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